a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Game 50 – Jirk Manslapped

OK, that’s not technically correct, because it was more like Mavs DWilled or Mavs Jazzed, but the Jazz put the beatdown on the Mavs and Sap did play a role in getting the W.

I admit that hearing DWill talking before the game about how he hopes that the Mavs will be tired from playing last night and hopes that the altitude will affect them didn’t exactly inspire much confidence. But as I sat there at work doing absolutely no work, I just felt GOOD, and better about this win than I have probably all season. And it was clear DWill felt the same way. You could see it on his face that something was different–good different. He was having fun tonight and there was no dark frustration-losing-injury cloud (his own and the team’s) hanging over his head.

There were so much joyfantasticness in this game:

–Softie Dick showing his mental weakness and his inability to overcome his whiniess and petulance. Poor little Dick got rattled and needed his rattle and there was no one there to hand it to him. I was cackling and snickering at my computer (and probably making everyone in the office doubt my sanity) watching him go 6 of 20.

–DWill’s breaking Jason Terry’s ankles

–DWill’s back to back 3s–DWill’s assist to Brewer for the monster slam

–DWill’s pass from halfcourt to Sap for the ‘oop–DWill, in general (34, 12 & 5)

–KK finding his shot again (more on him later)–the way Price defends the rim with complete fearlessness

–Karl as the guest studio analyst on “Inside the NBA.” (How freaking incredibly awesome would it have been if they’d gotten Stock to be on the show too? I wonder whether we would have seen the “never reveal any information” Stock of his playing days or the funny man we kept hearing about when he retired.) It’s kind of sad to hear/see Karl referred to as “NBA/Jazz legend,” because it points out how long he (and Stock) have been gone.

A couple of game notes:

–KK playing in the starting lineup alongside Brewer looked real good. Of course, here I have to mention that I advocated playing them together back in September. I don’t want to knock CJ too much, but KK fit seamlessly into the first group and didn’t have that “Where am I supposed to be? I’m lost. Oh well, I’ll just shoot a 3” kinda thing that CJ has going on sometimes. KK had arguably his best game in a Jazz uniform, and apart from racking up 20 points on 8 of 13 shooting (4 of 7 on 3s), he also made his presence felt with 9 boards and 3 steals.

–Memo and Sap were both solid, with double-doubles of 16 & 13 and 14 & 10, respectively.
–Bench? What’s that? [To be fair, AK was out and there were two “bench” guys starting]–Harp and JC played a total 25 solid minutes, but we didn’t really need them to contribute a great deal in this wonderful blowout.

On the injury front because this wouldn’t be a Jazz recap without one:

–CJ was out with a respiratory infection–Knight played 5 minutes before messing up his thumb and didn’t return. Before he left the game for good, he went 0-2, bringing his total in the last 8 games to 0-17. Yikes.

So much for an All-star snub game. How about an All-Star snub week? In the three games that DWill played in this past week (the reserves were announced exactly one week ago), he averaged 31 points shooting 63%, 10 dimes, and 2.3 steals. Sweet.